Hostname: page-component-586b7cd67f-l7hp2 Total loading time: 0 Render date: 2024-11-25T13:22:41.491Z Has data issue: false hasContentIssue false
  • English
  • Français

Do Political Finance Reforms Reduce Corruption?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  30 October 2019

Calla Hummel Open the ORCID record for Calla Hummel [Opens in a new window] ,
John Gerring Open the ORCID record for John Gerring [Opens in a new window]  and
Thomas Burt
Calla Hummel*
Affiliation:
Department of Political Science, University of Miami
John Gerring
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin
Thomas Burt
Affiliation:
Department of Government, University of Texas at Austin
*
*Corresponding author. E-mail: [email protected]
Get access Rights & Permissions [Opens in a new window]

Abstract

Reformers claim that public subsidies and regulation of political finance reduce corruption in politics, while observers worry that they have no impact on corruption, or even increase it. Despite national-level debates and billions of dollars spent, few studies have tested this relationship. The authors argue that political finance reform mitigates corruption by reducing private money's importance in politics and increasing the sanctions for corrupt behavior. Elite interviews from Paraguay's political finance reform illustrate the argument and elaborate the theoretical mechanisms. The study evaluates the argument using an original dataset measuring political subsidies from 175 countries from 1900–2015, as well as disaggregated corruption measures from the Varieties of Democracy project. The findings support the thesis that political finance reform reduces corruption, even in countries where such reforms are unevenly implemented.

Keywords

political financecampaign financecorruptionParaguay
Type
Article
Information
British Journal of Political Science , Volume 51 , Issue 2 , April 2021 , pp. 869 - 889
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2019

Access options

Get access to the full version of this content by using one of the access options below. (Log in options will check for institutional or personal access. Content may require purchase if you do not have access.)

References

Abramowitz, AI (1988) Explaining Senate election outcomes. American Political Science Review 82(2), 385–403.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Alexander, HE and Shiratori, R (eds) (1994) Comparative Political Finance among the Democracies. Boulder, CO: Westview Press.Google Scholar
Americas’ Accountability Anti-Corruption Project (2004) Political-Party Finance in Argentina, Chile, Costa Rica and Mexico: Lessons for Latin America. Available from http://pdf.usaid.gov/pdf_docs/Pnada553.pdf.Google Scholar
Auyero, J (2001) Poor People's Politics: Peronist Survival Networks and the Legacy of Evita. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.Google Scholar
Avkiran, NK, Kanol, DK and Oliver, B (2016) Knowledge of campaign finance regulation reduces perceptions of corruption. Accounting & Finance 56(4), 961–984.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Balán, M (2011) Competition by denunciation: the political dynamics of corruption scandals in Argentina and Chile. Comparative Politics, 43(4), 459–478.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Basinger, SJ (2013) Scandals and congressional elections in the post-Watergate era. Political Research Quarterly 66(2), 385–398.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bauhr, M and Charron, N (2018) Insider or outsider? Grand corruption and electoral accountability. Comparative Political Studies 51(4), 415–446.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Blundell, R and Bond, S (1998) Initial conditions and moment restrictions in dynamic panel data models. Journal of Econometrics 87(1), 115–143.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Briffault, R (2016) South Africa. In Norris, P and Abel van Es, A (eds), Checkbook Elections? Political Finance in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 177–197.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Bryan, S and Denise, B (eds) (2005) Money in Politics – A Study of Party Financing Practices in 22 Countries. Washington, DC: National Democratic Institute for International Affairs.Google Scholar
Butler, A (ed.) (2010) Paying for politics: party funding and political change in South Africa and the global South. Johannesburg: Jacana Media.Google Scholar
Calland, R (2016) South Africa. In Norris, P and Abel van Es, A (eds), Checkbook Elections? Political Finance in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 141–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Carlson, M (2016) Japan. In Norris, P and Abel van Es, A (eds), Checkbook Elections? Political Finance in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar
Casas-Zamora, K (2005) Paying for Democracy: Political Finance and State Funding for Parties. Colchester, UK: ECPR Press.Google Scholar
Coppedge, M et al. (2017) V-Dem Codebook v8.1. Varieties of Democracy (V-Dem) Project.Google Scholar
Council of Europe (2003) Recommendation Rec(2003)4 of the Committee of Ministers to Member States on Common Rules Against Corruption in the Funding of Political Parties and Electoral Campaigns. Available from https://rm.coe.int/16806cc1f1.Google Scholar
Della Porta, D and Vannucci, A (1999) Corrupt Exchanges: Actors, Resources, and Mechanisms of Political Corruption. Piscataway, NJ: Transaction Publishers.Google Scholar
Donchev, D and Ujhelyi, G (2014) What do corruption indices measure? Economics & Politics 26(2), 309–331.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Evertsson, N (2013) Political corruption and electoral funding: a cross-national analysis. International Criminal Justice Review 23(1), 75–94.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fariss, CJ et al. (2017) Latent Estimation of GDP, GDP per capita, and Population from Historic and Contemporary Sources. Department of Political Science, University of Michigan.Google Scholar
Fisher, J (2000) Party finance and corruption: Britain. In Williams, R (ed.), Party Finance and Political Corruption. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, pp. 15–36.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Fisman, R and Svensson, J (2007) Are corruption and taxation really harmful to growth? Firm level evidence. Journal of Development Economics 83(1), 63–75.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gans-Morse, J et al. (2018) Reducing bureaucratic corruption: interdisciplinary perspectives on what works. World Development 105, 171–188.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerber, A (1998) Estimating the effect of campaign spending on senate election outcomes using instrumental variables. American Political Science Review 92(2), 401–411.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gerring, J (2017) Case Study Research: Principles and Practices, 2d edn. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Gerring, J et al. (2005) Democracy and growth: a historical perspective. World Politics 57(3), 323–364.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Gokcekus, O and Sonan, S (2016) Political contributions and corruption in the United States. Journal of Economic Policy Reform, 20(4), 1–13.Google Scholar
Green, DP and Krasno, JS (1988) Salvation for the spendthrift incumbent: reestimating the effects of campaign spending in House elections. American Journal of Political Science, 32(4), 884–907.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hetherington, K (2011) Guerrilla Auditors: The Politics of Transparency in Neoliberal Paraguay. Durham, NC: Duke University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hogan, RE (2005) State campaign finance laws and interest group electioneering activities. The Journal of Politics 67(3), 887–906.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hopkin, J (2004) The problem with party finance: theoretical perspectives on the funding of party politics. Party Politics 10(6), 627–651.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Hummel, C, Gerring, J, Thomas, B (2019), “Replication Data for: Do Political Finance Reforms Reduce Corruption?”, https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QBBVOL, Harvard Dataverse, V1, UNF:6:XJfjQVNaslzDjfswwqpH4w== [fileUNF]CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Instituto de Investigaciones Jurídicas (2011) Financiamiento de los Partidos Políticos en América Latina. Available from https://www.oas.org/es/sap/docs/deco/financiamiento_partidos_s.pdf.Google Scholar
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2014) Funding of Political Parties and Election Campaigns: A Handbook on Political Finance. Stockholm: International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance.Google Scholar
International Institute for Democracy and Electoral Assistance (2017) Political Finance Database. Available from http://www.idea.int/data-tools/data/political-finance-database.Google Scholar
Jacobson, GC (1978) The effects of campaign spending in congressional elections. American Political Science Review 72(2), 469–491.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Jensen, NM, Li, Q and Rahman, A (2010) Understanding corruption and firm responses in cross-national firm-level surveys. Journal of International Business Studies 41(9), 1481–1504.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Keefer, P (2007) Clientelism, credibility, and the policy choices of young democracies. American Journal of Political Science 51(4), 804–821.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Koß, M (2010) The Politics of Party Funding: State Funding to Political Parties and Party Competition in Western Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Raja, RJ (2008) Small Change: Money, Political Parties, and Campaign Finance Reform. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
La Raja, RJ (2014) Money in the 2014 congressional elections: institutionalizing a broken regulatory system. The Forum 12(4), 713–727.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Lambert, P and Nickson, A (eds) (2016) The Transition to Democracy in Paraguay. Berlin: Springer.Google Scholar
Levitt, SD (1994) Using repeat challengers to estimate the effect of campaign spending on election outcomes in the US House. Journal of Political Economy 102(4), 777–798.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mann, TE (2003) Linking knowledge and action: political science and campaign finance reform. Perspectives on Politics 1(1), 69–83.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mauro, P (1995) Corruption and growth. The Quarterly Journal of Economics 110(3), 681–712.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMann, K et al. (2017) Democracy and Corruption: A Global Time-Series Analysis with V-Dem Data. Working Paper No. 43. Varieties of Democracy Institute.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McMenamin, I (2012) If money talks, what does it say? Varieties of capitalism and business financing of parties. World Politics 64(1), 1–38.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
McSweeney, D (2000) Parties, corruption and campaign finance in America. In Robert, W (ed.), Party Finance and Political Corruption. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press, pp. 37–60.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Mietzer, M (2016) Indonesia. In Norris, P and Abel van Es, A (eds), Checkbook Elections? Political Finance in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 84–102.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, P (2014) An informational theory of campaign clientelism: the case of Peru. Comparative Politics 47(1), 79–98.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Muñoz, P (2018) Buying Audiences. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nickson, A (1997) Corruption and the transition. In Lambert, P and Nickson, A (eds), The Transition to Democracy in Paraguay. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 24–44.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Nickson, A and Lambert, P (2002) State reform and the ‘privatized state’ in Paraguay. Public Administration and Development: The International Journal of Management Research and Practice 22(2), 163–174.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Norris, P and Abel van Es, A (2016) Checkbook Elections? Political Finance in Comparative Perspective. Oxford: Oxford University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olken, B (2009) Corruption perceptions versus corruption reality. Journal of Public Economics 93(7), 950–964.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Olken, BA and Pande, R (2012) Corruption in developing countries. Annual Review of Economics 4, 459–505.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pemstein, D et al. (2015) The V-Dem measurement model: latent variable analysis for cross-national and cross-temporal expert-coded data. Working Paper No. 21. Varieties of Democracy Institute.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Pinto-Duschinsky, M (2002) Financing politics: a global view. Journal of Democracy 13(4), 69–86.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Primo, DM and Milyo, J (2006) Campaign finance laws and political efficacy: evidence from the states. Election Law Journal 5(1), 23–39.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Razafindrakoto, M and Roubaud, F (2010) Are international databases on corruption reliable? A comparison of expert opinion surveys and household surveys in sub-Saharan Africa. World Development 38(8), 1057–1069.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Riquelme, M and Riquelme, J (1997) Political parties. In Lambert, P and Nickson, A (eds), The Transition to Democracy in Paraguay. Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, pp. 47–65.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rix, K (2008) ‘The elimination of corrupt practices in British elections’? Reassessing the impact of the 1883 Corrupt Practices Act. The English Historical Review 123(500), 65–97.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roodman, D (2009) A note on the theme of too many instruments. Oxford Bulletin of Economics and Statistics 71(1), 135–158.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Roper, SD (2002) The influence of Romanian campaign finance laws on party system development and corruption. Party Politics 8(2), 175–192.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Rose-Ackerman, S (1978) Corruption: A Study in Political Economy. New York: Academic Press.Google Scholar
Rose-Ackerman, S (1999) Corruption and Government: Causes, Consequences, and Reform. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Samuels, D (2001) Does money matter? Credible commitments and campaign finance in new democracies: theory and evidence from Brazil. Comparative Politics, 34(1), 23–42.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarrow, SE (2004) Explaining political finance reforms: competition and context. Party Politics 10(6), 653–675.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Scarrow, SE (2007) Political finance in comparative perspective. Annual Review of Political Science 10, 193–210.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Sequeira, S and Djankov, S (2014) Corruption and firm behavior: evidence from African ports. Journal of International Economics 94(2), 277–294.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Teorell, J et al. (2016) Measuring electoral democracy with V-Dem data: introducing a new polyarchy index. Varieties of Democracy Working Paper.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treisman, D (2000) The causes of corruption: a cross-national study. Journal of Public Economics 76(3), 399–457.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Treisman, D (2007) What have we learned about the causes of corruption from ten years of cross- national empirical research? Annual Review of Political Science 10, 211–244.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Vaishnav, M (2017) When Crime Pays: Money and Muscle in Indian Politics. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.Google Scholar
Williams, R (ed) (2000) Party Finance and Political Corruption. Basingstoke: Macmillan Press.CrossRefGoogle Scholar
Supplementary material: Link

Hummel et al. Dataset

Dataset

https://doi.org/10.7910/DVN/QBBVOL
Link
Supplementary material: File

Hummel et al. supplementary material

Appendices A-D

Download Hummel et al. supplementary material(File)
File 1.3 MB